The film begins in an Abyssinian castle in 50 BC, where a princess uses a pair of enchanted earrings to escape an arranged marriage by swapping bodies with a slave girl. When each woman wears one of the earrings, their bodies magically trade places while their minds remain where they were.

The rest of the film is set in the modern-day suburban hometown of Jessica Spencer (McAdams), a popular high-school girl, and her friends April (Faris), Keecia (Maritza Murray), and Lulu (Alexandra Holden). April is Jessica’s best friend, and all four girls are cheerleaders. At school one day, Jessica makes fun of an overweight girl named Hildenburg (Megan Kuhlmann) and a Wiccan girl named Eden (Sam Doumit). After that, Jessica and her friends visit the local mall, where Jessica gets her rival Bianca (Maria-Elena Laas) into trouble and finds the earrings in an African-themed store. The earrings are not for sale, so Jessica steals them.

Shortly afterward, a small-time criminal named Clive (Schneider) robs a nearby gas station. When Jessica and her friends stop there and mistake him for an employee, he services their car to avoid raising suspicion. Jessica accidentally drops one of the earrings on the ground, and Clive picks it up after the girls drive away. That evening, in their respective homes, Jessica and Clive put on their earrings. When they wake up the next morning, each of them is trapped in the other’s body. This is especially difficult for Jessica, who has a cheering competition and the school prom coming up soon.

After Jessica convinces her friends of who she is, they help her investigate the body swap. Hildenburg, Eden, and Bianca are all innocent, Hildenburg and Eden join Jessica after she apologizes to them, and Eden finds a picture of the earrings on the internet. When the girls return to the African store, the shopkeeper explains how the earrings work and tells the girls they must find the other earring soon or the change will become permanent.

Meanwhile, Jessica is hired for two jobs while secretly living with April. At her own home, where she works as a gardener, her parents tell her about their marital problems and she helps them rekindle their sex life. At school, while cleaning the boys’ locker room as a janitor, she spies on her boyfriend Billy (Lawrence), who truly loves her, and April’s boyfriend Jake (Olsen), who has another girlfriend. Faced with Jake’s infidelity, April begins to fall in love with Jessica, who agrees to take her to the prom. At the cheering competition, Jessica signals romantically to Billy while disguised as the school mascot, but when the head of her suit falls off, he becomes confused and leaves with Bianca.

During this time, Clive has been using Jessica’s body to make money from men, including Billy, who gives him his money and car, believing he is Jessica. However, on the evening of the prom, Hildenburg sees a video of Clive robbing a man on the television news and goes to the scene of the crime. After finding a business card for the club where Clive works as a pole dancer, she informs Jessica at the prom, and the girls go to the club. When they find Clive, Jessica steals his earring and puts it on herself along with the other one. With the two earrings now on the same person, Jessica’s and Clive’s bodies return to their original owners. After Jessica makes up with Billy, the film ends with the school’s graduation ceremony, followed by a scene in which Clive, running from the law and still dressed in lingerie, is abducted by a bartender who believes he is a homosexual.

REVIEW:

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if you’re even thinking about watching this, then you half know what to expect because you’re, in all likelihood, a fan of Rob Schneider’s films, right?

If this is the case, then you’ll love The Hot Chick, just probably not as much as his other flicks.

In this film, the plot involves a pair of African earrings that have the power to switch the bodies of the people wearing them. Somehow, these mystical earrings end up in the hands of your typical evil cheerleader who happens to switch bodies with a man who is her polar opposite. While she is in his body, though, she learns how much of an evil person she was, how much her boyfriend really loves her, and how great her best friend is.

Sounds like some sort of after-school special, right? Well, I wold agree with you, except that some of the jokes and situations in here remind you that this is a Schneider film, not to mention the recurring Adam Sandler character in the African shop, and the “that’s a huge bitch!” line that is uttered in the club.

As far as comedies go, this one could have gone in a totally raunchy direction and never looked back, but instead it sort of held back. Could this be a sign of maturity for Schneider?

Having said that, though, I can’t help but feel a little gipped that we didn’t get something more crass out of this film.

The story is alright, but it seems as if we’ve seen this whole thing too many times before, often done better.

The cast is ok, but every one of them is underutilized.

First of all, the “hot chick” is supposed to be Rachel McAdams. True enough, she is hot, but for a film that spends a good deal of time in the bedroom or cheerleader practice, or with other girls, they could have really played up the hotness angle.

Anna Faris, who I think is the hottest chick in the flick, was ok as the best friend, but it just seemed beneath her talents. Now, given the year this was released, I may just be thinking too present day. I think she was still an up and comer at this time.

Ron Schneider was his usual schlubby self, maybe even moreso than normal, but there wasn’t anything interesting about his time on-screen. I will say that his capturing of Rachel McAdams’ mannerisms was impressive, though.

Matthew Lawrence plays the stereotypical high school quarterback who is dating the head cheerleader. Nothing wrong with his performance, except we all know this gy can act, but this script didn’t really give him anything to work with, save for one scene where he finds out Jessica is in Clive’s body. That reaction was priceless!

I thought this was on ok flick, but nothing to write home about. It seemed like it was trying to be a bit more on the wholesome side, while keeping that “frat boy” mentality that many of Schneider’s films tend to exude. So, should you see this? Well, this won’t make you lose any brain cells or anything like that, there are better body swapping and Schneider films out there, so use your best judgement.